


Knowing and Caring

by floofboy



Category: Senyuu. (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alba is taking a vacation whether he likes it or not, Background Relationships, Baking, Cultural Differences, Fluff, M/M, Misunderstandings, POV Outsider, Post-F5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28206426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floofboy/pseuds/floofboy
Summary: Ruki has stepped down from many of her duties as the Demon Lord since her father returned. Ros spends most of his days doing absolutely nothing. They're in a peaceful era- there's no reason not to rest.But Alba, it seems, doesn't feel the same.So Ros and Ruki decide to take things into their own hands.
Relationships: Alba Frühling/Ross | Creasion
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24
Collections: Senyuu Secret Santa 2020





	Knowing and Caring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Just_in_e](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_in_e/gifts).



> Happy Holidays! I was your Secret Santa for this year's Senyuu Secret Santa - you said you wanted something wholesome with the main characters, so I went with Rchi POV for once. I hope this works! 🥺🙏
> 
> (By the way, I couldn't figure out if you prefer Ros or Ross- if you prefer Ross, I can go through and change that 👀)

When Ruki arrives at the research center, steps through the halls to enter the main lounge, she finds Alba sleeping soundly on Ros’ shoulder. They’re sitting quietly on one of the lounge’s mildly uncomfortable sofas, Ros’ arm keeping Alba gently in place.

It’s a scene that Ruki would find rather out of character, if it weren’t for the fact that she knew Ros had ensured Alba wouldn’t be waking up for a few hours yet. 

(Ros was so much bolder with the softer forms of affection when he knew Alba wouldn’t find out. What a child.)

Some of her smug amusement might’ve come out onto her face, because Ros’ gaze is narrowed as he asks- “Are we good?”

“Yup!” Ruki says, as cheery as can be. With a wave of her hands, she has a gate pop open in front of them. 

“Alright,” Ros says, then reaches into a pocket. In a practiced move, he flicks a Mana Maker to float by his head, blue flame burning bright. 

Then - again, far gentler than he’d ever be if Alba was conscious, and so Ruki can’t help but smirk - Ros brings Alba into his arms, wraps them both in a mana barrier. 

“Let’s go,” Ros says, then strides through the gate.

* * *

Here’s the problem. Alba can be a bit too much of a hard worker sometimes. 

Especially when it comes to the people he cares for. 

Ruki knows that far too well from that horrible year, that year without Ros. And she hadn’t said a word against it, because, well-

She wanted Ros back too. 

So she had stayed silent as the number of Alba’s scars grew, as breaking his ribs and more became as unremarkable as the sun rising in the morning. 

She thought it was over once Ros was back though. Because Ruki herself was perfectly happy- Ros was back, her _parents_ were back too, something she’d never dared wish for… what more was there to fight for?

But Alba hadn’t seen things in that way, it seems. 

As Ros and Ruki relaxed, Alba looked ahead, and worried. Worried about threats to their peace, from this world and others. 

And certainly, because of Alba’s efforts, they were all safer than ever. Even in worlds far from their own. 

But Alba has failed to realize that while all _he_ needs is for Ros to be safe and happy, for Ruki to be safe and happy, for his parents and Elf and Alf and everyone to be safe and happy-

For Ruki, for Ros, _Alba_ needs to be safe and happy as well. 

And Alba, rotting his days away in a lab, lost in other worlds, can’t be happy. Not really. Especially when things had gotten even worse after Sleepiez, even after- that man’s death. 

(Ruki won’t do him the honour of calling him ‘Alba’.)

Alba grew afraid, Ruki supposes. She had been kidnapped, even if it had turned out alright in the end- the research center had been attacked, Elf had been injured, and Ros, he-

Well. 

She supposes it couldn’t be helped that Alba grew afraid. 

(She is too, a little. But she trusts in her dad, trusts in Alba, and above all, trusts in herself.

She won’t let herself be kidnapped again, and she’ll make sure that no one else around her ever is either.)

But the point is that Alba had gotten worse, had thrown himself entirely into his work. Before, he would accept Ros’ invitations to go play, even if he complained about it- now, he turned down every single one. 

So. 

The Plan. 

Ros had been the one to come to Ruki about it. 

“I’m forcing Hero on a vacation,” he had said bluntly, and Ruki’s wings had twitched in interest. 

It was a very straightforward plan, but really, that’s all it needed to be. They would kidn- bring Alba to the Demon World for a couple weeks, force him to remember what it was like to take a break, then hopefully, Alba would learn to take them on their own. 

Ruki had readily agreed, and put in the work to convince her parents as well. 

(And besides all that, she’s missed Alba and Ros both. 

She more than welcomes the chance to have fun with them again.)

* * *

Ruki was the one to plan the itinerary for the vacation. 

It had been a joint effort at first, but well- honestly! Ruki understood the value of bullying your loved ones as much as any good demon, but there came a point when you needed to hold back! 

And Alba overworking himself like this was certainly a good indicator that they should hold back a little. 

But Ros had no such qualms when planning the vacation. Bungee jumping, rib-breaking contests, Hero Alba cosplay festivals…

Under other circumstances, she would’ve loved to take Alba to all of them, but- 

“Honestly, Ros-san!” Ruki exclaimed, exasperated. “Have you forgotten the whole point of the Plan?”

So she took over the planning entirely, Ros looking a little chastised as she did. 

Of course. Ruki was still a demon, and still the (former) Demon Lord. She couldn’t be blamed, really, if she snuck in some events that were say- a little more self-indulgent than most, could she? 

So the first event, planned for first thing in the morning after Alba woke back up was going to be-

Cookie baking.

* * *

They had brought Alba to the Demon Lord’s castle in the late evening, so Ruki is forced to leave Alba and Ros to their own devices almost immediately. 

Her parents may have enthusiastically agreed to the Plan, but they refused to budge on her bedtime. 

“9 sharp,” her father tells her, unmoving even in the face of her pouts. 

She was the (former) Demon Lord, and she was (almost) fifteen! Surely she could stay up until midnight from time to time by now. 

But Ros had sided with her parents as well - _“Hero and I are going to be asleep until tomorrow morning anyways.”_ \- and so with a grumble, Ruki heads off to bed. 

As a compromise to herself though, she barges into the room they’ve lent them first thing the next morning, in hopes of bothering them awake. 

“Good morning, Alba-san, Ros-san!” she says brightly. 

To her disappointment though, both of her friends are already awake. Two pairs of eyes blink towards her from the lounge chairs as she slams the door open. 

“Good morning, Ruki,” says Alba. To Ruki’s disappointment, he looks vaguely exasperated, but not overly put out.

“Tch.” Ruki clicks her tongue, expression darkening. “Don’t talk to me.”

“Wha- why?!”

“Can you blame her, Hero?” Ros asks, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. “She had to see you first thing in the morning. That would be enough to put anyone in an ill mood.”

“But Ruki came in herself?” Alba sputters, “You were the ones to kidnap me?!”

“Don’t try to wheedle your way out of this, Hero,” Ros says in a critical tone. “Apologize to Ruki.”

“ _For what?!_ ”

“Now you’re playing dumb?” Ros’ face twists in disgust. “Don’t talk to me either. Disgusting.”

Alba seems to be lost for words for a moment or two, but then he glances to the side, petulant. 

“...Says the one who always smiles at me as soon as he wakes u- ack!”

His words are cut off by a well-aimed fist to the hip. 

“Anyways, Ruki,” Ros says, ignoring the grumbling hero at his side. “What brings you here so early?”

And it is rather early - it’s barely an hour past dawn, and much of the castle, including her family, is still fast asleep. 

So it’s a little annoying that Alba and Ros are already awake. She had wanted to rouse them from their sleep herself as (perhaps misplaced) revenge for her early bedtime. 

But those thoughts soon leave her mind as she recalls the first item on their itinerary. 

“Breakfast, of course!” Ruki says brightly. 

Alba perks up a little. “That sounds good. I was getting a little hungry.”

“Heh heh.” snickers Ruki, entirely smug. “I already got Mama to buy us all the ingredients we didn’t have. We just need to bake them together now.”

A frown spreads across Alba's face.

“Erm, Ruki,” he says, hesitant. “What exactly are we gonna have for breakfast?” 

“Cookies.”

Alba blinks at her. 

“Cookies,” he echoes doubtfully. He looks like he’s about to make a pointed retort about the issues with having cookies for breakfast, but then-

Ros’ face shines. “That sounds perfect. Nice going, Ruki.”

And Alba, after stealing a look at Ros, simply coughs once and says wearily, “Alright then.”

* * *

As it turns out, letting Ros into the kitchen is a terrible idea, as the oven in flames goes to show. Ruki isn’t sure how Ros managed to burn an entire oven into ashes, but she is sure that it doesn’t really matter. 

“You stay there, Ros-san,” Ruki orders authoritatively, waving a large spoon towards a wooden stool in the corner. 

“But-”

Ruki glares at him, and Hero Creasion, legendary scourge of demonkind, sits obediently in the corner. 

Thankfully Alba, at least, is a passable baker, if not an amazing one. He can follow instructions, and he doesn’t burn down any ovens. 

(Naturally, Ruki is a master baker - why wouldn’t she be? 

Any undercooked cakes or burnt rolls were the fault of the oven, certainly not herself. Anyone who said otherwise didn’t know what they were talking about.)

Together, they manage to bake up a few dozen sugar cookies, carefully cut out in the shake of snowflakes and snowmen and demon wings. Next comes the decorating- Alba and Ruki prepare the icing well, whipping up bowls of red and blue and pink and white, pouring them into bags with only a little bit of mess.

And once they're done, Ruki eyes Ros in the corner, still scowling - pouting, really - on his stool.

"Do you think we can trust Ros-san with an icing bag?" Ruki whispers to Alba, standing on her tippy-toes to reach his ear. 

Alba smiles slightly. "I think it'll be fine."

So they drag Ros back in, put an icing bag in his hand, and get to work dotting the snowflakes with blue highlights, filling in the demon wings with cute red-pink gradients. Some cookies may or may not find themselves in Ruki's stomach during the process, but a good deal still survive. The end result- it isn't picture-perfect, even Ruki has to admit. Plenty of icing has spilled onto the edge, plenty more has been squeezed on unevenly onto a cookie or two.

But they taste good, and making them was fun. That was all that mattered, Ruki decides. Any grumbling from Ros’ end at being exiled from the baking process disappears as well after munching on a cookie or two. 

“Cookies for breakfast probably isn’t the healthiest, but-” Alba grabs another cookie himself, and lets out a happy laugh. “I guess it’s okay once in a while.”

Ruki looks up excitedly at Ros, because Alba was looking so happy, and that was just what they wanted, but-

Ros, it seems, is too distracted with smiling softly at Alba. 

Ruki huffs, but there’s no real anger to it. 

(It seems her friends haven’t changed one bit, and that’s comforting in a way.)

* * *

The next few days pass by without much fanfare. 

The itinerary that Ruki planned isn’t filled to the brim with events. While she wanted to spend as much time as she could with Alba and Ros now that she had the chance, that would defeat the purpose of this entire forced vacation. 

So they go out to visit famous landmarks, but they also rest in the library for hours. They spend the day at a tomato u-pick farm, then play video games in the evening. 

(And Ruki quite enjoys video games. The Internet is a lovely import from the human world, but in her humble opinion, video games almost surpass it in entertainment value. 

If only she could convince Lym or her parents to play with her more.

Both Alba and Ros seem to enjoy the games she likes though, and that’s a win for now.)

Alba doesn’t bring up work in front of Ruki, so she thinks they're doing well- until Ros tells her Alba is _still_ worrying over it when it’s just the two of them. Still tries to sneak off to the research center, still tries to lose himself into other worlds. 

And that wouldn’t do. 

Ruki thinks she has a solution though. 

Never let it be said that she isn’t a woman who can’t read the mood!

* * *

Ruki gives Alba and Ros some money, a map to a cute café down in the castle town, and waves them off. 

It wouldn’t do if Alba could only relax when she was around, whether it was because he felt like he had to respect her time for hosting everything, whether it reminded him of their adventuring days, or whether it was some odd combination of both. 

Because as much as she’d like otherwise, she was going to be more and more busy with the ol’ lord business as time passed. She would be able to visit the human world less and less. 

She would drift further and further apart from her old friends.

Maybe they could still make it work. Lym hopes for that, she knows. Lym has her own human friends, ones she cares for as much as Ruki cares for Alba and Ros, and as logical as Lym usually is about things- 

She refuses to let them go. 

(And the truth is that Ruki is no different. 

But she’s too afraid to lose a future she wanted for a third time, so she can’t quite expect the best.)

Regardless of all that, Ruki wants to help Alba. Because he’s her friend, and she knows he would do - he _has_ done - the same for her. So if she can help Alba relax with the person who could actually stay by his side, then, well- she would step aside for a bit. 

It wasn’t like she wanted to watch them get especially touchy-feely either. Ew. She got more than enough from her parents' ridiculous levels of gushiness.

No, she’d happily let them go do that where she couldn’t see.

And besides, Ruki had promised Lym she would help her with some castle budgeting tasks, and Lym was beginning to get really antsy about it. It probably couldn’t be put off until after Alba and Ros left. 

So she goes to help Lym out.

It doesn’t take long for Ruki to regret it though.

* * *

“How is there so much of this?” Ruki complains, flopping her head onto a desk covered with paperwork. The office they’re in is relatively small, but even taking that into account, the paper-to-person ratio is far too high. 

“We haven’t gone digital yet,” answers Lym from her desk, sounding tired. “So every little detail needs to be done by hand.”

“Still!” A heavy sigh escapes Ruki’s mouth. 

But Lym is unmoving in the face of Ruki’s woes. 

“Can you put this in your file cabinet? Papa needs to go over it later, and my cabinets are full,” Lym says briskly, leaning over to set a hefty pile of papers down onto Ruki’s desk. 

“Okay…” Ruki says, sighing again. 

“Also,” continues Lym, grabbing another paper from her desk. “I had a question about this.”

Ruki blinks up at the paper. 

“The invitation list for the Nama Cross dinner?” 

Christmas had been a big hit with families with children- most kids loved running around with a ‘Nama Cross’ throwing presents at them. But Ruki had wanted to spread a holiday event that was more geared towards anyone. 

Hence, the Nama Cross dinner. A dinner after the day’s festivities for the children, where people were encouraged to cook using the colour of the holiday - red. 

(Coincidentally, there’s always been tomato surpluses around this time of year that farmers struggled to sell before they rotted.)

Naturally, the Demon Lord’s castle was hosting an official Nama Cross dinner too, inviting major players of the Demon World to come eat and make merry. 

Lym nods. “Why don’t we invite Alba-san? He’s supposed to leave just a couple days before the event, right? It shouldn’t be that much trouble for him to stay a little longer.”

“The point of the Plan is for him to relax,” Ruki says firmly, straightening up in her seat. “There’s no point if we take adventure of him for our own PR problems.”

(And well, to be honest, just having Hero Alba in the Demon Lord’s castle was giving them major points among the pro-hero factions anyways.)

It was true that having Alba attend the Nama Cross dinner would probably make things much easier for their father. The anti-hero factions among demons were still deathly afraid of Hero Alba, no matter how much they hated him. A visual reminder that the Rchimedes family was still very close to him would certainly cause some to shut up. 

But Ruki didn’t want to use Alba like that. It didn’t matter if Alba would happily agree. It still made her feel icky. 

And she’s sure her dad would agree too. 

“I get what you’re saying,” says Lym, “I don’t want to take advantage of Alba-san either. But I think he might be interested in coming, for himself.”

Ruki blinks, her head tilting in confusion. 

So Lym clarifies. “I mean, it’ll be a good chance for him to meet a new love, don’t you think?”

Ruki is now even more confused. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s been heartbroken for years, right?” Lym asks, voice completely sincere. “Since Guilty Justice dumped him for Dezember Zwolf.”

And Ruki chokes on air.

* * *

Ruki doesn’t really keep up with rumours much. She knows they can be useful, but she mostly finds them just idiotic. So while she keeps in mind the particularly widespread stories, overall, she ignores them. Cat videos are cuter than nonsense conspiracy theories. 

Lym, on the other hand, thinks the value of rumours is too important to just ignore. Especially when she’s so young, when there’s so much she doesn’t know from even just a few years back. 

And that might be alright, except for the fact that Lym has apparently fallen victim to an absolutely ridiculous lie. 

“There’s no way that Alba-san is _heartbroken_ over Guilty Justice,” Ruki says, rolling her eyes. “They’ve never-” she pauses, remembering one brief scene from years back, “-they’ve met like once. You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.”

“This isn’t just an Internet rumour,” Lym insists. “There’s witness testimonies too - a jailor confirmed that Alba broke free of his jail to chase after Justice, only to be dumped. He said he let him go because he seemed too pitiful to arrest after that.”

“There’s no way,” Ruki says again, shaking her head firmly. 

“Guilty Justice wouldn’t let rumours like this be if they weren’t true,” Lym points out, and as much as Ruki is loathe to admit it, she does have a point. 

In the Demon World, might makes right. As much as her father is trying to change that, their engrained culture is hard to shift. 

And Guilty Justice, one of the mightiest demons in the Demon World, has more than enough power to shut down a rumour that she had dated Hero Alba in the past. Considering her ongoing infatuation with Zwolf, she has the motive to as well. 

But still…

“Alba-san can’t be heartbroken over _Guilty Justice_ ,” says Ruki, frustrated. “He’s been dating Ros-san since before I even met them.”

Now it’s Lym’s turn to look at Ruki in confusion. 

“I’ve never heard that before,” Lym says doubtfully. 

Ruki scowls, her cheeks puffing up in displeasure. “You don’t believe me?”

“I know you wouldn’t lie,” says Lym reassuringly. “But..." She tilts her head to the side. "How sure are you of this?”

“One hundred percent,” Ruki says in a tone that brokered no room for discussion. “Ros-san gifted Alba-san a dagger he stabbed him with. And Alba-san accepted it. He even uses it as his main weapon now!”

But despite that overwhelming piece of evidence, Lym still doesn’t seem convinced. 

“They aren’t demons though,” Lym points out. 

“They’re still both mana users,” counters Ruki. “Maybe Alba-san didn’t know what it meant at first, but Ros-san must’ve known! He was Creasion!”

But Lym just shakes her head. “Humans don’t think the same way, Nee-chan. When I was working in the human world, even the mana users didn’t act like demons would.”

“If ‘humans don’t think the same way’,” Ruki echoes, a touch petulantly, “Then why does Ros-san tease Alba-san so much?”

“Well, that’s…” Lym trails off, clearly lacking a good answer. She sighs. “Why don’t we just ask them directly?”

“Hmph. Sounds good to me,” Ruki says, fully confident. “They should be back before dinner. You’ll see then!”

“If you say so…” Lym says, still sounding doubtful. 

Ruki may or may not pout a little.

* * *

Rchimedes the First - “Grandpa”, though she knew perfectly well such a soft title didn’t suit him - was laughably cruel in how he created the demon race. That much became clear during the time she spent alone in the Demon Lord’s castle, reading through all the books in the library with a fervour in a desperate attempt to fulfill the role that was thrust upon her. 

Mana was powered by grief, by anger, by despair (excepting Ros’ recent discoveries in the field.) Demonic mana was no exception- even Ruki’s magic was bolstered by negative emotions. She’s known that for as long as she remembers. 

But what she hasn’t known was the method for demon creation. 

No amount of demonic mana, no matter how well controlled, could create another demon on its own. To make another demon… you needed to throw another demon’s mana into the mix. Not just any demon would do though, oh no. 

You needed to be compatible. 

And to be compatible, your mana needed to be _used_ to flairing up around them. In simpler terms- they needed to cause you negative emotions, enough for your mana to familiarize itself with the particular way they made you feel. 

That in itself should have been enough of a death knell for the demon race. The fact that only demons that annoyed each other, or worse, hated each other, could create more of their kind? It should’ve meant that no new demons were created naturally at all. 

Except even that hadn’t been enough for Grandpa, because he had added in one more failsafe. 

For a demon’s mana to leave their body, to reach out to another’s-

They needed to love them deeply. Enough so they didn’t fear losing their mana to them, enough so they wouldn’t mind creating another being with them, if they both so wanted. 

_It was a surefire way_ _to keep the demon population firmly under Lord Rchimedes the First’s thumb_ , stated one stuffy researcher in one of the many textbooks that Ruki read. _Making us like this meant that only he could create more demons- or so he thought._

But demons had simply evolved appropriately. 

_Who was Lord Rchimedes to say you couldn’t love someone, yet hate them in ways?_ wrote one of the more passionate authors. _Who was Lord Rchimedes to say you couldn’t hate someone, yet love them in ways? Both hard and soft affection are still love to us, in the end._

New demons were still rare, the tightrope between mana compatibility and mana attraction still difficult to balance for most. Thankfully though, they weren’t entirely dependent on Grandpa to keep themselves from dying out, and that was enough. 

So Ros has always been such a stereotypical romantic, at least from Ruki’s point of view. Cooking Alba food but poisoning it occasionally, giving Alba a gift by stabbing him with it- really, Ruki has always rolled her eyes at what a sop the man was in the harder forms of affection. 

She’s aware, of course, that most humans don’t have mana. But while Ruki has no idea how new humans are created, but however it’s done, surely increasing mana compatibility and attraction couldn’t hurt - especially with mana users. There must be some similar practices for romance- why else would Ros have acted the way he did towards Alba? How else could Alba have seen the affection for what it was? 

That’s why she’s completely confident, when Lym and her go to talk to Alba and Ros in the halls after their return from their date. There’s no way she’s read this wrong. 

Except Lym asks, “Are you dating, Alba-san, Ros-san?” and Alba turns beet red. 

“Wha- where did that come from?” he sputters, “Of course not!”

“What?” Ruki says incredulously, and, almost at the exact same time-

“What?” Ros says, equally incredulously. 

Alba blinks towards Ruki, then towards Ros. “Huh?”

Ros pinches his nose, tight enough that Ruki can make out the small red marks left behind, then, smile strained, clenches Alba’s arm in a harsh grip. 

“Lym, Ruki,” says Ros, inclining his head to both of them in turn. “Sorry, I need to go talk with a moron for a bit. We’ll get back to you, yeah?”

And before anyone can respond, Ros is dragging Alba off and away.

* * *

Alba and Ros come to find her a few hours later, when she’s busy browsing Smile-Smile Douga for new videos. 

But she sees in the corner of her eye that they’re holding hands, and that Alba is averting his gaze. It makes her curious enough to shut down the browser and spin her chair around. 

“What’s up?” she asks. 

“Hero,” Ros says pointedly, and Alba lets out a cough. 

“I, um,” stammers out Alba. He coughs again. “We’re dating. Ros and I, I mean.”

Ruki’s face brightens immediately. She jumps out of her chair, hands landing on her hips. 

“I knew I was right!” she says, with all the smugness a kid who just proved their younger sibling wrong could muster. 

“Hero has something else he wants to say too, doesn’t he?” continues Ros, eyes narrowing. 

“I was getting to it, okay,” Alba mumbles defensively, then turns back to Ruki. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re… sorry?” Ruki repeats, her confusion rising. 

“I worried you both, and a lot of it was just because of my own stupid misunderstandings,” Alba explains, “I talked things over with Ros- I’ll tone things down now a little, I promise.”

Ruki stares up at them both, at Ros’ small, satisfied smile, at Alba’s nervous, but genuine expression…

And she can’t stop the smile from rising on her face as well. 

“Took you long enough!” she says brightly. “Honestly, Alba-san, what were you thinking?”

“He wasn’t,” Ros says snidely. 

“I wasn’t,” Alba agrees, dragging his free hand through his hair. It seems he has no snappy retort for once. “Thank you so much for organizing all this too, Ruki. I’m really thankful, honestly.”

While normally she wouldn’t mind taking all the credit, she gets the feeling that _someone_ is being all shy about things, and well- what kind of demon would she be if she didn’t drag that out into the open?

“I did plan most of the vacation,” says Ruki sweetly, “But it was Ros-san who thought it up in the first place!”

And aha, there Ros goes, flushing pink and shooting her a glare. Ruki just sticks her tongue out in response. 

“Don’t say anything, Hero,” grumbles Ros. 

“I wasn’t going to,” Alba replies, voice indulgent- then yelps as Ros stabs a sharp foot into his ankle. 

It’s a familiar sight, and Ruki can’t help giggle. 

“Anyways, it wasn’t just for you, Hero,” says Ros. He smiles down at Ruki. “You’ve been getting busy lately too, yeah? Figured we should go meet you for a change.”

Ruki is taken aback, but most definitely not in a bad way. She giggles again. “Thanks, Ros-san.”

She really feels warm inside, as silly as that might sound. 

(Maybe it wasn’t only Alba who had been misunderstanding things.)

“But now that Alba-san is feeling better,” she muses, “Maybe we can use some of your original event ideas after all, Ros-san.”

Eyes widening, then a bright smile. “The rib-breaking festival is still on until the day after tomorrow!”

“The _what_ festival?!”

* * *

There's only a few days left until the planned end of the vacation, and they spend it going to a couple events that Alba is more than willing to make some cutting retorts towards.

(But she gets the feeling that Alba enjoyed them as much as they did.)

In the end, Alba and Ros end up leaving right on schedule, a couple days before the Nama Cross dinner.

But Ruki waves them goodbye with a large, bright smile.

She’ll miss them, of course. It’s always more boring not having them around. She’s sure now though, they’ll keep in touch.

She wouldn’t lose them so easily.

(And that’s more than enough to make her days brighter.)


End file.
